LIZ SMITH: Too Close to Call

The Debate Result — It's Still a Race Too Close to Call ... The Fall of Billy Bush — Is That Really Fair? ... Celebrating Manhattan's Legendary New National Landmark, The Stonewall Inn.

“I DON’T necessarily agree with his [Bill Clinton’s] victims. His victims are terrible. He is really a victim himself. But he put himself in that position. But the whole group is a truly unattractive cast of characters ... Paula Jones, Lewinsky, it’s really an unattractive group. I’m not just talking physical.”

Donald Trump to Fox News’ Neil Cavuto in 1998.

Trump in another interview also referred to Clinton’s Inspector Javert (aka Ken Starr) as “a total wacko.”

Donald in 1998.

THE SECOND debate. It changed nothing. Trump supporters say he did brilliantly. Clinton’s insist she won the night. The dial has not moved. What will matter for both candidates is voter turnout on Nov. 8th (The smug over-confidence of Clinton’s advocates continues to concern me deeply.)

Clinton’s best moments came after she left the stage, on board a plane. She was smiling charming — obviously relieved it was over — and ignoring pleas to sit down and fasten up. She declared her staff “all needed a couple of drinks,” and reiterated her mantra — Trump is unfit to hold the highest office in the land. In those unscripted moments she was the very much I woman I have known and met.

I enjoyed Donald’s impersonation of Lurch from "The Addams Family," hovering around and behind Clinton. His facial expressions alone were priceless.

But in truth, the debate itself, what it was compelled to address in the first twenty minutes, and the banana republic threats that came later ("You'd be in prison") were the stuff of nightmares and national disgrace.

THE MOST startling thing (to me) to come out of the weekend frenzy was the indefinite suspension of NBC’s Billy Bush, because he happened to be the reporter caught on tape, chortling with Donald Trump, as the businessman spoke so charmingly about women. Bush did not use the language Trump did, but he didn’t clutch his pearls and flee the trailer, either.

NBC has cooperated with the Trump publicity machine as cravenly as any other network. What — they suddenly disapprove of Donald, but since they can’t chastise him, they bear down on Bush?

Don’t get me wrong. No love here for BB. I find him minimally talented and not an asset to ... anything. And we had our own experiences with him, viewed from afar (like, a table away) at several Hollywood events in years past.

Pat O’ Brien and Billy Bush.

At one — Clive Davis’ annual pre-Grammy gala — he was accompanied by “Entertainment Tonight’s” Pat O’ Brien. Bush (and O’Brien) were obnoxious, obstreperous and entitled. But that was then. (O’Brien eventually sought help in rehab.) I recall that nobody had a kind word for Bush. At least not in observing him in action, on these two separate, perhaps atypical nights. Today, even in a locker room or trailer conversation Billy might be a shining example of propriety. We don’t know.

However, Billy Bush — a cousin to the Bushes who have not spent their lives chatting up actresses with implants for brains and actors with brains no larger than a pea — is not running for office. He has not ever presented himself as a role model. He apologized fully (although he was not exactly a callow youth even back in 2005.) He will not have power over our lives. He will not control the nuclear code. Nobody is going to point to Billy Bush and say, “Grow up like him, kids.” Must we all now fear being in the presence of a powerful person, speaking crassly 11 years ago, because we might lose our jobs today?

Suspending him, possibly for good, is yet another pointless example of political correctness gone oppressive. And as a liberal Dem, I blame liberal Dems for this. It has given the other side endless fodder.

ON June 28th 1969, life changed forever for gay people in the United States, indeed around the word. (Today we refer to the LGBT community, which I find an awkward mouthful, but what the hell.) It was the Stonewall riots, a long-simmering, spontaneous series of battles, which went on for several nights. Within a week these initially mocked confrontations elevated the issues, rights, and massive oppression of gay men and women into a powerful influential, righteously angry movement. (The spirit of finally being free and unafraid, in time led to the more radical Act-Up during the horrors of the AIDS era. They couldn’t have known it at the time, but the brave, very young men and women who went out to the Stonewall one hot night in 1969 for a drink and a good time, saved lives, and in time presided, often in spirit, over same-sex marriages.)

The Stonewall Inn became a historical spot in the hearts and minds of gay people everywhere. On June 28th, of this year, President Obama declared it a genuine historical site.

Now in celebration of the designation, an online celebrity auction will happen on October 25th, running for two weeks. There will be a kick-off reception on Monday October 24th, at the Stonewall itself. Bidders should go to Charitybuzz.com.

By the time this "amusing" headline was published, the gay genie was out of the bottle, and liberation was in the air.

Madonna, Cher, Stevie Nicks, Michael Buble, Demi Lovato, Miley Cryrus, George Clooney, Taylor Swift, Anderson Cooper, Troye Sivan and Andy Cohen are among the many who have donated items. (Many more celebs are expected to donate!) Proceeds will raise funds to help maintain what is now called the Stonewall National Monument (the oval space of several blocks that border the bar.)

Among the organizations involved are Diana Rodgriguez’ Pride Live Nation ... The National Parks Service ... Charity Buzz and Prizeo, another online fundraising entity. (Madonna will part with a pair of shoes, Cher a Philip Treacy hat, Stevie Nicks an autographed tambourine, with the words, “Love to You, Stonewall.”)

This will be an event that so many who danced on the black-and-white checkerboard Stonewall floor — lit from below — to the sounds of The Supremes, Sly and the Family Stone, The Fifth Dimension, The Archies, Credence Clearwater Revival and Jackie DeShannon’s “Put a Little Love In Your Heart” — could never ever have imagined.

LOOK AT This! Here is actress/model Luisana Lopilato, in a still from an
upcoming film. We are not sure of the title. It is either "Predeterminados" or "Los que aman odian." Both are described as in the thriller/drama genre. Luisana is supposed to be a femme fatale of the dangerous film noir type. She certainly looks dangerous! Ms. Lopilato is in real life married to singer Michael Buble. Men, this is what hitting the right notes can get you. Start taking lessons now.